no, they didntbut... *rummages through his launch 360 box* oh look, a new headset included!

and 3rd party headset / earphones were nowhere near as prevalent during the original xbox days as they are now. hell most people probably didnt even have the broadband needed to get live, let alone a snazzy set of gaming earphones for console play

and the headset is just a minor thing - i just hate that microsoft "showed their hand" when it comes to what they want to create in the console space, because prior to the xbox 1 i had signed on to their consoles bigtime!

if microsoft had their druthers, the xbox one would be an all seeing eye in my living room, always connected and demanding i never lend, sell, borrow or trade a single game. not that gaming would even be its focus, as the "business team" at microsoft has already pointed out how much time its users spend on netflicks, facebook, "new websink / advert mechanism X" etc... in two years time it would listen to my conversations so it could target advertisements to me, even as it charged me 60 dollars a year to play online and bombarded me with commercials the whole way through. and meanwhile every incremental feature... a new device! i should have realized back when the hd DVD drive was extra, the dvd remote was extra... the headset... extra

and the reason i feel burnt is because i jumped on board and helped push this idea of a console. every dash update that slowed down and buried all the features i cared about, i still renewed. i was sold on live and its stable connections, its friends list, its additional bonus content (bonus no longer, now every action a transaction - a games feature, an opportunity to remove it and charge for it). hell i LOVED that microsoft finally made one of my favorite genres - the fps, a viable option on the tv! so im a bit ticked now that i see what theyve tried to push for the "endgame" - yes ive been very ranty lately, im sorry

I really can't see MS including a headset in the box and it has nothing to do with money. MS wants you to use Kinect. Heck they're shoving it down everyone's throat so they're not going to just give everyone a headset that they'll use instead of talking to Kinect.

The 360 included headset was "shoved" down peoples throats (nothing is free in the box) to bring forth the concept of online voice comm as a standard feature.

This is no different, and the sour grapes about a product that isn't out yet seems foolhardy. We don't know how the voice isolation works, or how well comm chatter translates to speakers. I don't enjoy digging around for my headset, only to find the "broken" one and then go find another one. Wearing a .$.25 speaker on my head while listening to 7.1 others working hard at delivering a consistent soundscape is also kinda dumb.

If it can do it, great! If it cannot, I'll be getting a headset / adapter.

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"If it weren't for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we'd still be eating frozen radio dinners." - Johnny Carson

One thing to note is that both these consoles would have been candidates for a mid-generation upclock according to some technical aspects discussed in some forums I frequent. It's a tricky thing, but actually very doable. It actually happened on the PSP, for instance, even though that had a different situation.

It's also important to note that there actually weren't any official specs for the XB1, and there still isn't a complete spec, just leaks and rumors.

This does bring the XB1 GPU to be about 5% more powerful according to various forums, but the PS4 GPU is theoretically 50% more powerful. So, Sony doesn't need to do anything at this point.

Xbox One launch title Forza 5, for example, outputs at 1080p and 60 frames per second, but Xbox One's in-built DVR captures clips at 720p and 30 frames per second.

As revealed last month, Xbox One records the last five minutes of your gameplay. For times when you can't stop playing (such as in the middle of an online session), Microsoft allows you to capture and immediately save the last 30 seconds of gameplay for editing later.

"The first thing you'll see with our game DVR is the integration of our Upload service on the console," Whitten explained.

"This service allows you to manage, edit, and share your content. Your clips are stored in the cloud. Also, you'll see games making 'magic moment' videos of your gameplay based on the game DVR functionality - all seamlessly integrated.

"You'll be able to see these clips in the Xbox One Guide, in your own game DVR collection, and when you are looking at gamercards on the system. You'll also see games take advantage of this platform capability and do interesting things to integrate captured game footage into the game experience itself."

Meanwhile, Whitten confirmed that Xbox 360 Avatars will transfer over to Xbox One, and include new options, such as the ability to do full-body HD gamerpics.

"We've moved from the 64x64 gamerpics on Xbox 360 to a full 1080p," Whitten added. "They are beautiful, and you are going to see some really cool hero moments, like when you login to see personalised views of your games and other content."

Every game has its own set of achievements, so if you’re playing Call of Duty: Ghosts on Xbox 360 and on Xbox One, you can earn a separate set of Gamerscore in each game. But on the Xbox One version, you’re getting a much richer set of features, such as seeing your achievements progress on the Xbox One console, being able to unlock new achievements throughout the year, and earning real prizes inside and outside of the game. Xbox One also enables a new concept of challenges, where games will be offering special time-based opportunities to earn various goals and collect the rewards

While this is good news, they really need to just sit down and think long and hard about all the concessions they're going to do for the rest of the year and do them all at once. Doing them piecemeal here and there just makes them look like they're scrambling out of desperation.

While this is good news, they really need to just sit down and think long and hard about all the concessions they're going to do for the rest of the year and do them all at once. Doing them piecemeal here and there just makes them look like they're scrambling out of desperation.

In other news, Microsoft just announced that Xbox Live will now be called Live Plus, the controllers will have in-set sticks, and the Xbox One's name will be chaged to XB4.

While this is good news, they really need to just sit down and think long and hard about all the concessions they're going to do for the rest of the year and do them all at once. Doing them piecemeal here and there just makes them look like they're scrambling out of desperation.

In other news, Microsoft just announced that Xbox Live will now be called Live Plus, the controllers will have in-set sticks, and the Xbox One's name will be chaged to XB4.

While this is good news, they really need to just sit down and think long and hard about all the concessions they're going to do for the rest of the year and do them all at once. Doing them piecemeal here and there just makes them look like they're scrambling out of desperation.

In other news, Microsoft just announced that Xbox Live will now be called Live Plus, the controllers will have in-set sticks, and the Xbox One's name will be chaged to XB4.

At E3 this year, we briefly highlighted a new benefit we’re bringing to Xbox Live Gold members on Xbox One. We’re calling it Home Gold. It will enable any Xbox Live Gold member on Xbox One to extend many Gold features to others at no additional cost. One Xbox Live Gold account delivering great benefits to everyone in the home.

Here’s how Xbox Live Gold members can extend Gold benefits including multiplayer gaming, Game DVR, SmartMatch and access to entertainment apps and experiences, including The NFL on Xbox, Skype, Internet Explorer:

At home. You can set up your console at home so that anyone who uses that console will enjoy multiplayer gaming and access to entertainment apps – even if you are not home or logged in.

On the go. You can log in at a friend’s house and everyone there can enjoy multiplayer gaming and access to entertainment apps while you are logged in.

bah, I already did the same thing with PSN+ by letting friends log in with my account.

« Last Edit: August 10, 2013, 01:58:39 AM by CeeKay »

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Because I can,also because I don't care what you want.XBL: OriginalCeeKayWii U: CeeKay

We already knew that you could turn off the Kinect, but now Microsoft says it doesn't have to be plugged in at all. Speaking to IGN, Microsoft's Marc Whitten shared the news that the Xbox One will indeed work without Kinect.

"That said, like online, the console will still function if Kinect isn’t plugged in, although you won’t be able to use any feature or experience that explicitly uses the sensor," he said.

We already knew that you could turn off the Kinect, but now Microsoft says it doesn't have to be plugged in at all. Speaking to IGN, Microsoft's Marc Whitten shared the news that the Xbox One will indeed work without Kinect.

"That said, like online, the console will still function if Kinect isn’t plugged in, although you won’t be able to use any feature or experience that explicitly uses the sensor," he said.

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Because I can,also because I don't care what you want.XBL: OriginalCeeKayWii U: CeeKay

So now all MS has to do is announce the $399 kinectless sku and they win next gen, right?

No that just makes them competitive. All these changes have been because they lost a ton of ground to the PS4, they aren't doing them because they are winning. Pre-orders must have been more bleak than I thought.

and of course, the dissenting opinion on not absolutely requiring the Kinect. I did like this part:

Quote

And if the $100 difference between the PS4 and Xbox 1 begins to make a difference, how long will it take for Microsoft to begin shipping units with no Kinect at all? It can claim that won't happen, but at this point, what credibility does it have that it won't, under sufficient pressure, offer a first shipment of Xbox One consoles crammed full of My Little Pony action figures some Microsoft exec read that people like on 4chan or something? None, really.

gentleman (and those who live outside the U.S.), I think we have a challenge here. FOR PONY!!!!!!!!

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Because I can,also because I don't care what you want.XBL: OriginalCeeKayWii U: CeeKay

I was thinking something's similar earlier. On the one hand, listening to their customers and not simply steamrolling forward (like Sony did with the PS3) is admirable. On the other, they have backtracked on so much at this point, you can't put too much faith in anything until the system is out, at this point. Perhaps they should have had more market research earlier in the process.

Man I bet Microsoft's Entertainment division so wishes they could take a time machine back three months and have all of these changes put in when first announced. It seems like these last few months has been and endless parade of damage control.

Indeed, while I'll never purchase an Xbox (Sorry, NSA, you'll have to find other ways to spy on me) They are slowly and surely turning upside down their machine to make it look like a PS4, and thus remain competetive. I'm not sure though how much of an effect it will have. Gamers are fickly, and that fickleness swings both ways. They'll have to have some heavy marketing come release month, AND hope that Sony has no more tricks up its sleeves.